Beckham Begins to Experience the Complexity of Miami Waterfront Politics

SOCCER IN MIAMI
For David Beckham, latest soccer stadium site poses new challenges
Filling a deep-water basin on Biscayne Bay for a Major League Soccer stadium may be no easier for David Beckham than trying to build on the port.

BY PATRICIA MAZZEI
PMAZZEI@MIAMIHERALD.COM
If the notion of building a Major League Soccer stadium on PortMiami land seemed fraught with practical complications and political pitfalls, try putting one on water.

David Beckham and his investors are examining whether filling a deep boat slip with rocks, forever altering the jagged edges of downtown Miami’s shoreline, would work as a location for their planned stadium.

They’re likely to find at least as many challenges as they did for their first-choice port site. There are new costs to weigh, environmental and building permits from federal, state and local agencies to request — and not one, but two municipal governments to persuade.

Beyond those logistical and political considerations is a broader question for elected leaders in Miami-Dade County and the city of Miami. Do they want to turn over the last remaining piece of public, open waterfront along Biscayne Boulevard to a private entity to build an imposing structure?

“You’re basically giving away public land,” said Laura Reynolds, the Tropical Audubon Society executive director, who has repeatedly fought attempts to fill the water basin over the years. She sent the county a letter Friday opposing it as a stadium site.

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who asked Beckham’s group to take a serious look at the location, said he proposed the idea to create a hub of recreation and cultural attractions. Though he brought it up to the team just last week, county records show Gimenez asked staff in December 2012 to run scenarios to fill the slip. Rumors about Beckham’s interest in Miami began to intensify the following spring.

A filled basin would connect Museum Park to AmericanAirlines Arena along the water — a promenade that would extend to the county-owned property known as Parcel B behind the arena. Parcel B had been promised as a place for public access to the bay, but has been used merely as a staging site for arena events.

Parcel B is key, said John Alschuler, the Beckham group’s real-estate adviser, who said the 2.76-acre property offers enough room for a meaningful park. “This is your chance to do Millennium Park in Chicago,” he said.

Gimenez has given Miami Beckham United until May 19 to figure out if a stadium on the slip is feasible. Alschuler told the Miami Herald’s editorial board last week that if the price tag is close to the $250 million the group estimated it would need to privately fund construction of a port stadium, then the investors would be on board. The group also intends to apply for a state subsidy.

Rent or some other sort of compensation for the public land would still be required, Gimenez said. There’s talk behind the scenes of Beckham contributing to a fund for city park maintenance and improvements.

According to Beckham’s analysis, port construction would cost $50 million more than at alternative locations at the time — chief among them next to the Miami Marlins’ ballpark in Little Havana. The group was willing to take on the additional expense to be on the water, with a highly marketable downtown view from the port’s southwest corner.

Building on the water basin would likely entail fewer infrastructure costs, since it’s smaller and surrounded by developed land. But filling even just three-quarters of the slip could cost about $17 million, according to an estimate the county’s public works department made in December. (Earlier drafts were higher.) Using dirt from the nearby port dredging product could save $1.5 million, though Gimenez has said using that material would be unlikely.

There would also be other costs. In 2011, Miami commissioners passed a resolution against any “actions or discussions” by the county to fill the city-owned Florida East Coast Railway slip. The city has invested close to $12 million to upgrade the basin’s sea wall and install moorings for large vessels, according to Miami’s capital improvements office.

“The above investments were made in recognition of the unique element the FEC slip brings to Miami’s urban, waterfront environment,” the legislation said.

The slip measures 1,200 feet by 315 feet at its widest point and has a maximum depth of 27 feet, according to the county. In all, the property has an area of about 9.91 acres, with 7.85 of those acres under water. It forms a nearly perfect rectangle because its shape is man-made: The areas north and south of it were filled to create land east of Biscayne Boulevard.

So important was the site, then part of a larger tract, that the city acquired it for $23 million in the 1970s after eminent domain proceedings in court. Miami promised a bayfront park; to pay for the purchase, it used funds from a bond issue, known as Parks for People, that voters approved in 1972. In the 1990s, the city sold the southern portion of the tract to the county for $36 million for arena construction.

Filling the basin might leave the city on the hook for more than $3 million in grants it received in recent years from the Florida Inland Navigation District for improvements. The grants were awarded on the condition that the basin remain public for 25 years.

“There might be a reimbursement situation,” said Mark Crosley, the district’s executive director. But he said he’s open to a potential fill plan, especially if it allows more people to enjoy the waterfront.

“I think it’s a little underutilized,” he said of the slip. “Maybe if something happened on that shoreline, that would be a good thing.”

Spencer Crowley, the Miami-Dade commissioner for the navigation district, works as an attorney for the Akerman law firm representing Beckham’s group.

As the only deep-water basin in Miami-Dade and Broward counties outside PortMiami and Port Everglades, the slip has been used to dock mega-yachts and, in 2012, Volvo Ocean Race sailboats. Next month, the Eagle, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, is scheduled to dock there.

The slip is part of the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserve, which the state created to protect the bay’s biological and aesthetic value. The designation generally prohibits filling, though there are exemptions if the development is deemed to be in the public interest.

The preserve amounts to a park on the water that should remain untouched, said Reynolds, the environmental advocate. “We’re supposed to be taking care of it for future generations,” she said. “We all want to be close to the water — so we can’t keep filling it.”

A biological assessment conducted in January 2013 by divers in Miami-Dade’s Division of Environmental Resource Management, or DERM, found “negligible” traces of sea grass; some algae; small coral; lobster and several species of fish, and submerged trash and debris.

A fill plan would require permits from DERM, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection or South Florida Water Management District, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose processing times are notoriously difficult to predict. DERM estimates that all the permits could be obtained in 12 to 20 months, according to Deputy Mayor Jack Osterholt, who oversees the agency.

The city would have to apply for the permits — and change the property’s zoning to allow a stadium — if it maintains ownership of the site. Miami could sell the land to the county, which appears unlikely, or convey it to Miami-Dade.

It’s not only the slip site itself that would be in play. To fit a 25,000-seat soccer stadium, the building would have to encroach on the city-owned Museum Park next door. On two satellite images, county staff drew the outline of a nine-acre square — roughly the shape needed to construct a stadium — over the property. One had the square closer to the water; the other, closer to the boulevard, the location Gimenez said he prefers.

Museum Park is the former Bicentennial Park that the city and county paid millions to renovate as the home of the recently inaugurated Pérez Art Museum Miami and the under-construction Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science. The zoning there doesn’t allow stadiums, either.

It’s unclear how much parkland would be lost. According to Gimenez and Alschuler, the intrusion into Museum Park would be offset by the new green space created by filling the slip and connecting it south to Parcel B — a promise critics find hard to believe.

For now, the museums are withholding judgment, with their spokespeople declining to comment until if and when more specifics are available. A spokeswoman for the nearby Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts also declined comment.

Gimenez said Beckham’s group might have to reach parking and scheduling agreements with the museums and arena. He also asked that a stadium maintain bay views as much as possible.

In the end, what Gimenez requests may not matter much when it comes to the basin. Beckham’s group would have to turn its political attention to the city, whose leaders may be resistant after having been left out of much of the courtship so far.

Miami Mayor Tomás Regalado — much like Gimenez — was elected in part thanks to his opposition to the largely taxpayer-funded Marlins Park. In Regalado’s view, any proposal involving city waterfront property would have to be approved by voters — adding time and uncertainty to Beckham’s plans.

District Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who recently dismissed an idea to put a Cuban exile museum on Parcel B or Museum Park (“How about having some grass?” he said), is still a supporter of a port stadium.

As for the slip, he added, “until someone sits me down and shows me pictures, there’s nothing for me to say.”

Beckham’s investors are starting to face a time crunch. They have until the summer to present a stadium proposal to Major League Soccer.

The league sold Beckham a franchise on the condition that his team play in a new stadium designed for soccer, though MLS recently approved a shared football/soccer stadium for a new Atlanta expansion team.

Beckham reiterated last week that he expected challenges and remains undaunted by them. “It was never going to be a smooth ride,” he said.

One county commissioner, Juan C. Zapata, said he told Beckham when the two met Wednesday that some of his commission colleagues and members of the public have been “unfair” to the soccer proposal.

“They haven’t come up with any details yet,” Zapata said. “We, as a community, have to be open. Let’s wait till the facts come out, and then pass judgment.”

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What We’re About

We seek more public attention related to MIami's waterfront properties
-We need to work with th developer and others to preserve the Tequesta Archaeological site at Met Square- also the site of the Royal Palm Hotel, Fort Dallas etc. Does Miami have any sense of place or is it endlessly disposable?
-We Are concerned about Genting's destination casino and attempts by other casino moguls to hone into Miami's space.
-We are concerned about the one sided news coverage of so many issues such as their fawning over David Beckham's real estate dealings regarding Major League Soccer - another potentially bad deal for the County on public land.
-The fate of ostensibly public parkland called Parcel B that was promised as a park in 1996 next to the American Airlines Arena but which has for long been fenced off- from the public.
-The continuing Sales office related to the Epic Hotel on what is supposed to be public right of way along the mouth of the Miami River.
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Issues Are Coming At Miami in fast order.
-Met Square Building at site of Tequesta/Royal Palm Hotel. We need an alternative design to properly save the site within a larger waterfront planning effort.
-Beckham land grab on Watson Island? Check out Beckham's relationship with Sheldon Adelson. Is there a Trojan horse here?
-2.7 acres of Parcel B waterside at American Airlines Arena for a Cuban History Museum and additional Heat Parking garage? COme on. Cuban History Museum should be in Little Havana